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finally, is in itself satisfactory proof of the inexpediency of issuing any final instructions for the trial here of all such Criminals, when apprehended by Her Majesty's Naval Stations.
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I also foresee that the ends of justice, which ought to be the main object, are more liable to be defeated than advanced by applying so inflexible an instruction to all such cases.
I would therefore respectfully suggest that it be advisable for Her Majesty's Government to consider whether the necessity for the proposed fresh instruction be really paramount to the practical considerations of expediency which I have ventured to place before Your Lordship.
10. Finally, it occurs to me that Her Majesty's Government may probably have heard of some special case in which prisoners brought in by one of Her Majesty's vessels were for a time given up to the Chinese Authorities. I think it right to explain that a Naval Officer did in that instance bring to Hong Kong about twenty prisoners taken in a very gallant action at sea with some armed trading junks under special circumstances which induced him not unreasonably to regard them as Pirates. On his arrival here he sent his prisoners to the Mandarin at Kowloon on the Mainland. As soon as I heard of this I told him that as he had